Democracy, Conservatism, and American Foreign Policy

About the Author

The origins of my topic today are rooted in debate that began last
year when Pat Buchanan ran for President-.-,Yowwill,,rec all--that-
many accused-Buchanary of being-arrisolationist in foreign policy.
His "AmencaFirsf 146reign policy conjured upimagqs of.a. past
isolationism rooted in American nativism and protectionism. While
Buchanan himself claimed not to be isolationist, m any of his
opponents suggested that-he spoke for-many conservatives who
supposedly wanted America to retreat from its many international
commitments. To counter this perception, The Heritage Foundation
published two foreign policy "blue- prints," to put f o rward the
conservative case for continued U.S. involvement in world affairs.
In short, we argued that international engagement was necessary to
defend U.S. national interests in the post-Cold War era. The case I
wish to make today, however, is a different one. If the one extreme
of isolationism is not the way for America to go, neither is its
opposite-what I call the "Democracy First" school-whereby a
fixation with spreading democracy becomes the main focal point of
Ameri- can foreign policy. Let me start b y conceding a critically
important point: as with any American value, democracy is an
important principle inspiring U.S. foreign policy. It has been so
throughout Americaff his- tory. I do not want to underestimate the
importance of it. The Founding Fathe r s of the United States saw
America as a sort of democratic Eden-far away from the corrupting
influences of monarchy and aristocracy in Europe-and as an entirely
new and different sort of country based upon the secular, universal
principles of the French, E nglish, and Scottish Enlightenments.
Empire of Liberty. The American values of democracy and liberty
were summed up very well in Thomas Jefferson's notion of America
being an Empire of Liberty. Jefferson saw the North American
continent as a vast area for planting the ideas of democracy and
liberty. These values would be institutionalized not only in the
American social contract-in the U.S. Constitu- tion-but in the very
soil of the United States. Later on, of course, in his famous book,
Democracy in Ameri c a, Alexis de Tocqueville argued that what was
happening in America was only the first step toward the inevitable
triumph of equality and democracy around the world. America was
merely the vanguard of a vast historical movement toward
egalitarianism and de mocracy. Many variations on this theme have
emerged today in the works of thinkers looking for a new American
purpose in foreign policy now that

Vim R. Holmes is Vice President and Director of Defense and
Foreign Policy Studies at The Heritage Foundation. He spoke at The
Heritage Foundation on March 30, 1993, as part of the W.H. Brady
Ucture Series on Defining Conservatism.

ISSNO272-1155. @1993 by The Heritage Foundation.

1 See Making the World Safefor America: A U.S. Foreign Policy
Blueprint (Washingto n, D.C.: The Heritage Foundation, 1992), and
Kim R. Holmes, ed., A Safe and Prosperous America: A U.S. Foreign
and Defense Policy Blueprint (Washington, D.C.: The Heritage
Foundation, 1993).

the Cold War is over. They seem to think that with the collaps e
of the Soviet Union, Tocque- ville's vision can now come true-that
America can complete the job of democratizing the world in its own
image. Wedding Power and Principle. However, before Americans
succumb to this very tempting and gratifying vision of Am e rica's
new purpose, they had best stop and ask themselves whether they
fully understand the role democratic ideals have played in U.S.
history. In the early part of this century, Woodrow Wilson
justified our involvement in World War I as making the world s afe
for
dernoemey,@,Jn,.othKwords,themoraljustification-for..this..war..was
supposedly idealistic,.. to safegL!ard.thq,.pXincipig,,-@kid
prac@ice of democracy in Europe and the U.S. But, of course, this
U.S. involvement in World War I had a more practical side. It was
also to help prevent the domination of Europe by an authoritarian
and expansionist Germany, which threatened to upset the balance of
power in Europe. Not all of Germany's enemies were deniocra-
cies-certainly Imperial Russia was not-so Wilson ' s moral
justification for war as a crusade for democracy was only partly
true. And history shows that the causes of World War I were more
about rival nationalist, dynastic, and imperial ambitions than
about democracy. Nevertheless, Wilson's theme stuck in the American
consciousness. Wilson had not only inter- nationalized the American
democratic ideal, he had, as Jefferson had done before him, wedded
power and principle in American foreign policy. America would wage
war abroad for an ideal. The power of th e nation would be
harnessed to defend America's form of government abroad- namely,
democracy. Employing American power overseas was tantamount to
defending America's ideals at home. This mixing of power and
principle happened again in World War 11. The Ame r ican ideal of
democracy was mobilized against the totalitarian ideology of Nazism
and fascism. Again, the crusading aspect of America's involvement
masked some of the underlying practical and geo- political
considerations for the U.S. involvement in World War II. America
could not afford to have a fascist Germany dominating all of Europe
and Eurasia. Nazi Germany threatened Ameri- can interests not so
much because it was anti-democratic, but because it was
expansionist. If Hitler had not been expansionist, America would
have had no reason to go to war against him. During the Cold War,
of course, the Soviet Union replaced Germany as a threat to Europe,
and indeed to the U.S. interests and values around the world. Thus,
instead of anti-Nazism, the new campaig n became anti-communism.
And once again, power and principle mixed quite well in the
discourse on American foreign policy. Inheriting Britain's Role. In
the First and Second World Wars, and in the Cold War as well, the
United States had inherited the balan c e of power role of Britain.
America was an offshore, non-continental power preventing the
attempts of a continental power-be it Germany or the So- viet
Union-to establish hegemony in Europe. This was the role Britain
had played for nearly two hundred year s in European history, in
wars against the French, the Russians, and the Ger- mans. And yet,
America was not Britain. Americans were not as cynical as the
British in pursuing power politics on the world stage. America's
self-consciousness and its definitio n s of national in- terests
were steeped in its philosophy of governance. Not so Britain.
Britain did not need the high-powered moralism of America to
justify the defense of its interests in Europe. Closer to Eu- rope
than America, and with a long history o f monarchy and aristocracy,
Britain needed only the principle of self-defense.

2

America, of course, needed more. It needed to know that the
exercise of power had some moral foundation other than
self-interest. Lacking any prolonged and serious threat from a for-
eign power for a good part of its history, the U.S. had not
developed a p olitical tradition of raison dViat. Instead, it had
elevated its form of government to a universal principle which
should inspire its foreign policy. This need for something more is
still with us today. Americans rightly want to know their place in
the wo r ld. They want to know what America's moral purpose is.
Yet, at the same time, they do not
-.wanL.Americato..becomeAhe-wozld.'.spoliwz=..They.-want.atoreign
policy that not only defends and promotes their interests abroad,
but avoids unnecessary wars. Seek i ng a Moral Purpose. The problem
today is that it is more difficult for us as Americans, now that
the Cold War is over, to find a-moral purpose for American -foreign
policy. It is more difficult to mix power and principle, to see
idealism and reasons of st a te as two sides of the same coin. The
great crusades of anti-fascism and anti-communism are over. The
only great causes ex- isting today are democracy and a vague
humanitarianism pursued in conjunction with the United Nations. Let
me quote you some exampl e s of this drive to make democracy and
humanitarianism the centerpiece of American foreign policy. I will
start with quotation fromWill Marshall, the Direc- tor of the
Progressive Policy Institute, a think tank associated with the
Democratic Leadership Cou n sel. In the PPI's Mandate For Change, a
compilation of policy recommendations for the Clinton
Administration, Marshall writes, "We propose that support for
democracy and free mar- kets replaces anti-communism as the
conceptual basis for U.S. security poli c y in the 1990's and
beyond." Also there is Joshua Muravchik, a Resident Fellow at the
American Enterprise Institute, who said in his book, Exporting
Democracy, "Democracy is the centerpiece of American foreign pol-
icy." And he adds, "What is good for dem o cracy is good for
America." Bill Clinton, during the presidential campaign, told an
audience at Georgetown University, "The defense of freedom and the
promotion of democracy around the world are not merely a re-
flection of our deepest values, they are vi t al to our national
interest." The last quote I would like to give you is from a very
good friend-a highly respected scholar and diplomat-Robert
Strausz-Hup6. He says that "the U.S. cannot compromise the
solidarity of all democratic peoples. That solidarit y is
indivisible. An attack against any democratic people is an attack
against all democratic peoples." This desire to make the promotion
of democracy the centerpiece of American foreign policy exists on
the left and the right. Conservatives like Strausz-H u p6 as well
as liberals like Clinton make the case for replacing anti-communism
with pro-democratism. Fundamental Problems. Yet, there are some
fundamental problems with the Democracy First school of thought.
However well-intentioned its proponents may be, they nevertheless
find it dif- ficult to articulate a workable and consistent
national strategy for America. Let me give you an example. There
obviously will be times when the U.S. will have to sacri- fice the
principle of democracy for the sake of the na t ional interest-when
standing up for others is not standing up for us. We had to choose
the national interest over democracy all the time dur- ing the Cold
War, in supporting Turkey, South Vietnam, South Korea, Taiwan, the
Philippines, Iran under the Shah, even Kuwait. The list could go
on. I think that even though we will have to make that choice less
now that the Cold War is over, it is still a choice that
occasionally we will have to make. For example, we do not (nor
should we) champion democracy in Saud i Arabia, Egypt, or Kuwait.
That is because, as we learned with

3

vilifying the Shah of Iran in the name of human rights, we could
end up not only with more re- pressive regimes, but with more
anti-American ones. Nor should we forget that Syria was an a lly of
the U.S. during the Persian Gulf War. For tactical and practical
reasons, we refuse to give al- lies and friends democratic litmus
tests when some overriding national interest requires it. Necessary
Exceptions. Moreover, sometimes there is a clash b etween tactics
and long-term goals in championing democracy abroad. While a case
can be made that Russian president Boris Yeltsin is pro-American
because he is a democrat, some Democracy Firsters might be faced
with a dilemma ;ifhe_we;e-toAm&-somedec4ded1
undemocrafic-measuresmw--Iike-suspending -the anti- democratic
and-porniaimes. anti-American Russian.parliament-as a @@ay of
continuing his pro-reform and pro-Western course. You have to break
some eggs to make an omelette; and sometimes you have to take an
indirect route to democracy and reform. This may be the case in
China as well. Perhaps the best way to bring democracy to China is
not by slapping trade sanctions on it, but by expanding trade
relations. China's growing trade and commercial relations w i th
Taiwan, Hong Kong, and the outside world may be slowly eating away
at its totalitarian political structure. If that is so, then
cutting off most-favored-nation trad- ing status for China could be
tantamount to slowing the long-run process of democratiz a tion.
These examples show that there is no easy and consistent way to
apply the principle of democ- racy to the practice of American
foreign policy. Democracy cannot be an "animating principle" if it
provides no real guidance for our foreign policy, if, i n fact, it
does not tell us how to act in places like the Middle East, China,
and possibly even Russia-three vitally important areas to U.S.
interest. What is, indeed, the point of having a foreign policy
principle that has so many ex- ceptions? We say, "Y e s, we support
democracy around the world as a principle, except of course in the
Middle East, or parts of Asia, and possibly even in Russia." In
other words, except when it is inconvenient. I really believe that
principles, particularly operating ones, sh o uld apply in all (or
certainly most) cases. And frankly, the democracy principle does
not cut it as a principle at all. All the nec- essary exceptions
you need to explain it only demonstrate its weakness as a
principle. It is one thing to say that democra c y is a core value
of the United States; it is quite another to say that this core
value self-evidently reveals a practical strategy for American
statecraft. The problem arises in confusing ends and means. Broad
utopian statements about "what is good for d e mocracy is good for
America!' can only lead to confusion and even hypocrisy. Frankly,
sometimes supporting democratic movements abroad is not good for
America, or even necessary. But this is a question of tactics, not
goals or principles. The U.S. does no t violate its own ideals by
pursuing its own interests. Moral Constant. I believe that the
moral constant of American foreign policy is not some con- cept or
ideology. Rather it is to promote and defend the life, liberty, and
prosperity of the American peo p le. Fulfilling these goals is the
moral obligation of the federal government to its citizens. That
is, in fact, the moral essence of the social contract we call the
U.S. Constitution. That being the case, American foreign policy
does not have to be infuse d with some higher moral purpose-whether
it be promoting democracy or any other principle or ideology
abroad. So long as the U.S. government protects and promotes U.S.
interests within the bounds of the Constitution and the values of
the American people, n o higher moral appeal need be made. That
does not mean that American values do not shape and influence
American policy. Rather, it means only that spreading those values
abroad is not the primary purpose of U.S. foreign policy.

4

The way around this prob lem is to view supporting democracy abroad
as part of an American foreign policy strategy, and not as a goal
or end in itself. Put simply: We should support democ- racy abroad
when it is in our interest to do so, which fortunately is more
often than not. B ut I see no point in making the promotion of
democracy an American foreign policy ideology when, in fact, there
may be times when supporting despots or even undemocratic rulers
may be necessary. The difference is in seeing democracy as one of
many moral p r inciples inspiring and influenc- ing American
foreign policy-which I contend is the proper perspective-or in
pretending that
democracym.-midoQlQg*4&4tself4he-objecwLAamrkanZowignix9iryP-ranwting-.an
ideology abroad cannot co;pp@etelyqapture thefullyange o f American
interests. American interests actu- ally transcend the cause of
promoting democracy around the globe. Supporting democracy may be
often in the national interest, but it alone is not enough. Larger
National Strategy. The key is putting support fo r democracy in the
context of a larger national strategy. For example, promoting
democracy in Russia is a good idea because demo- cratic reformers
like Yeltsin also are more or less friendly to the U.S. In other
words, democratization of Russia will produc e a benign Russian
foreign policy. In other places, it may not. There may be no
Western-style democratic forces to support, or we may mistake
populist movements for democratic ones (as we did with the
Ayatollah Khomeini). There may even be some cases where the
legitimate democratic forces are too weak, and an authoritarian
regime pro- vides a stronger bulwark against some more powerful,
anti-democratic, and anti-American political group. Another example
of putting a democracy strategy in a larger context ca n be seen in
U.S. Latin American policy. Spreading democracy in Latin America
not only creates stability in this hemi- sphere, it also can be
tied to promoting free trade relations, which will create economic
growth and markets for American goods. U.S. job s will be created
and U.S. defense spending can be re- duced as stability accompanies
economic growth in Latin America. There are, however, limits to
making democracy part of American strategy. Democracy means
different things to different people. Frankly, elections are not
enough. The American and West- ern notion of democracy also
requires limitations on state power, as well as economic freedom,
independent judiciaries, and political pluralism. Try as we may,
these things are hard to influence and manipul a te with the tools
of foreign policy-diplomacy and foreign aid, primarily. It is al-
ways tempting to take the simple way out, to say that a country is
democratic if it is has free and fair elections. However, there are
places on earth (Iran is one of them ) where free and fair elec-
tions would not produce aWestem-style democracy favorably disposed
toward the U.S. The Democracy First crowd may think that they are
the best (and possibly only) alternative to the America First
school of isolationism. In fact, I would contend that these two
schools of thought are opposite extremes of the same phenomenon: a
propensity toward utopian thinking. It should not be too difficult
to make intelligent statements about the role of democracy in
Ameri- can foreign policy wit h out making hopelessly unrealistic
claims about democratizing the globe. America indeed needs a new
foreign policy strategy. And it certainly needs a debate on its
most fundamental purposes abroad. But neither isolationism nor
democratic crusaderism will f i t the bill. A country must mean
what it says, particularly the United States. We have no intention
of promoting democracy everywhere around the globe. Therefore, I
think we should cool the rhetoric a bit. Otherwise we will raise
expectations in the rest o f the world that we cannot possi- bly
fulfill, and we will confuse our own people about what America can
and cannot do to change the world.

5

After all is said and done, dedication to America and dedication to
the principles of democracy are really one a nd the same. I think
that is the way the Founding Fathers saw democracy in America, and
that is the way that I think we conservatives should see it as
well.